Simon Says... (Written by CEO Simon Anderson!)

Announcing: DreamObjects!

I have seen the future of humanity, and it is food cubes. These cubes
are chewable, 2 inch hexahedrons packed with all the nutrition and
vitamins that humans need to live, laugh, and love themselves all the
way through to the end of their natural lives in the healthiest, most
nutritionally optimized manner possible.

Imagine a world without starvation or obesity - both will be eliminated
in one fell swoop by the introduction of these single-serve, water-
soluble cubes large enough to stave off hunger, but small enough to be
smuggled into American prisons.

Things like "calorie counting" and "restaurants" will all be forgotten
in time - societal vestiges of a primitive era when humans were slaves
to their appetites, held hostage by crippling pangs of hunger and
unrelenting social pressures to conform to some arbitrary concept of
physical beauty.

I have *also* seen the future of web hosting, and it is "The Cloud".

This month we took the wraps off of our first major product offering in
nearly a decade, and I'm happy to report that, finally, DreamHost is
no longer JUST a "simple web host".

Shared, VPS, and Dedicated web hosting? Old news. Any schlub can set
one of those up in a day. Oops, did I just say that out loud?

We're excited because we've taken the wraps off of something that we're
calling "DreamObjects", our NEW cloud storage service.

DreamObjects is so named because it uses the concept of data "objects"
where data is stored in giant virtual "buckets". You might make one
bucket to house your music collection, another for photos, and a third
for documents pertaining to your gross, gross hobby. You can even
designate files within each of your buckets as being public or private
at a moment's notice.

Unlike traditional web hosting where monthly pricing is fixed and
resources are unlimited, pricing for DreamObjects is usage-based. You
only pay for data that you store on our servers and for the amount of
data that is transferred from them.

Storage costs start at $0.07 per GB (Amazon S3 starts at $0.12!) and
scales all the way down to $0.044 per GB, depending on just how much
data you choose to store with us. Outbound transfer costs are fixed at
$0.07 per GB.

And the best part? DreamObjects is API-compatible with both Amazon's
S3 and OpenStack Object Storage (formerly known as Swift), so if you're
a web developer and your app is storing data on either of those
platforms, DreamObjects could potentially be a drop-in replacement for
you. You could be like, 30 minutes away from saving a sizable chunk of
money!

DreamObjects is of course powered by CEPH, the open source distributed
file system which has sprung forth from DreamHost's loins and is now a
mature, well-adjusted software project, able to live on its own (within
the Linux kernel), and pay its own bills. In fact, DreamObjects is the
largest public Ceph deployment to date!

You can sign up today to join our public beta test and we'll contact
you when space opens up. We're plowing through that list pretty
quickly so it'll be a short wait. For more information about
DreamObjects, and to get in line for the beta, visit:

All beta users will have access to a free trial period lasting TWO
WHOLE months! During that time you'll not incur any charges as long as
you store less than 10GB of data and transfer out less than 20GB.

Anything more than 10 and 20 kind of tests the limits of the term
"trial" and will incur $0.07/GB overage charges, both for storage and
outbound data transfer.

We're pretty excited about not only what DreamObjects means for YOU, but
also for what it means for DreamHost. Can you think of any other
service providers that offer both plain-Jane shared web hosting AND
enterprise-level object storage?

Neither can we.

And we're just gettin' started.

Las Vegas. We're coming.

The DreamHost "Reach Out & Touch You Tour" continues to redefine the
concept of the term "inappropriate"...for the better, we think!

Next stop? The very straight-laced, health-conscious, morally
incorruptible desert oasis known as Las Vegas, Nevada.

We'll be at the Blue Martini lounge just south of the Las Vegas Strip on
Tuesday, September 18th, from 6 to 9pm. Drinks and appetizers are on
us. Vomit is on you...worst case scenario.

Come out and meet key members of the DreamHost team from across the
company - tech support, marketing, software development...we'll all be
there! ASK us anything you want. TELL us anything you want. That's
why we're there, after all!

You may even get to meet our CEO, Simon. Seeing the twinkle on his
tooth and hearing the "ding" that happens whenever he smiles is
something everyone needs to experience in person at least once before
they die.

If you're located in or around Las Vegas, we'd love to see you there.

You must be 21 to attend and, we should say, this event is not
toptional.

New Charity: The Free Software Foundation

June through August we solicited donations for "StoryCorps," an
independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all
backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and
preserve the stories of their lives.

15 of you - a whopping 0.0045% of our total customer base - donated to
the cause, bringing in a total of $375.10, which we then TRIPLE MATCHED!
This week we submitted a donation to StoryCorps for $1500.40 and we
feel pretty good about it.

The "FSF" works to secure freedom for computer users by promoting the
development and use of free (as in freedom) software and documentation
- particularly the GNU operating system - and by campaigning against
threats to computer user freedom like Digital Restrictions Management
(DRM) and software patents.

So, okay, that description kind of makes them sound like the very
definition of an Internet troll. Truth is they do a lot more than just
type in all caps and grow out their head hair. Whether you realize it
or not the Free Software Foundation is on YOUR side, fighting to -
among other things - put full control of the devices that you already
*own* in YOUR hands, and not in the hands of the people that made them.

You can submit donations to the Free Software Foundation (which we'll
then ultimately quadruple, as always!) from the "Give to Charity"
section of your account control panel:

DreamHost WTF: Web Panel Search Bar

You may have missed it, but there's a little magnifying glass with a
search box right up there at the top of your DreamHost web panel.

That magnifying glass may as well be a magic wand, because that thing is
pure sorcery.

All you need to do is START typing what you're looking for on the web
panel and BOOM! You'll immediately see a list of possible destinations
on the panel and a direct link to each one! A glitter explosion may or
may not follow - we've had some problems with those lately.

Maybe you want to "create new DNS records" on a domain you're hosting.
Just type "cre" into that box and you'll see something amazing -
IT KNOWS.

Need to "Contact Support"? I think you mean "cont".

Need to "Change a user password"? "chan" will take care of you.

If the form can't help you it doesn't just scream and throw its hands
up in the air. But that would be cool. No, it forwards your query
right along to the DreamHost Wiki, the ultimate knowledge receptacle
for all things DreamHost.

DHSOTMs

The DreamHost Site Of The Month is a coveted title reserved for a select
few DreamHost customers. We don't do the selectin' - you do!

As voted by you, the winners from AUGUST are as follows...

The winner in the DESIGN and STRUCTURE categories is:
Jovick Construction
"Jovick Construction specializes in Green Building. We are located in
Southern Oregon. We offer construction and consulting services for new
construction, additions, and remodels."

I am not taking your beautiful gallery of homes made from natural
materials for granite.

The winner in the ORIGINALITY category is...
geekybeaver
"We're a web design and computer repair business located in Burlington,
On. We offer most everything from remote computer support to web site
design, and everything inbetween. We'll be sure to get your business
online and running smoothly."

Remember, you can always click through to the DreamHost Site Of The Month section of your account
control panel at any time to submit your site, vote on candidates, and
view all winners past and present. (Winners appear in bold.)